"The British created a civil service job in 1803 calling for a man to stand on the Cliffs of Dover with a spyglass. He was supposed to ring a bell if he saw Napoleon coming. The job was abolished in 1945."

-- Robert Sobel

2 posted on 08/28/2012 10:21:55 AM PDT by Steely Tom
(If the Constitution can be a living document, I guess a corporation can be a person.)

Ethanol mandates have the economic effect of putting fuel uses of corn in front of all other uses, and of forcing ethanol blenders to pay whatever price for the corn they must buy in order to refine the amount of ethanol necessary to meet fuel needs. This ties the price of corn to the market price of oil.

Since chicken and to some extent beef and hogs are feed so much corn, the price of their meat is strongly related to the price of oil.

Because of the fact that ethanol is at best a marginal improvement on the issue of “sustainability”, and because it is just silly to burn such a high percent of the corn crop, these mandates should be eliminated entirely. If ethanol-blended motor vehicle fuels are such a great idea, people will buy them anyway.

Yep, an alliance with the left to attack the nations #1 industry, #1 export, and non-union farmers who are working their butts off. Let’s don’t attack the fat welfare scabs sitting on their cans and screaming for more free food. Obesity is the #1 health issue in the country, but hey, let’s make food more available while vilifying hard working non-union members because they get tax breaks; and, call it corporate welfare, another hackneyed phrase of the left, used to condemn anyone or any industry getting to keep more of what they earn and produce. If we end this tax-break then we end them all, not just the ones for the non-union workers.

4 posted on 08/28/2012 10:47:42 AM PDT by Neoliberalnot
(Marxism works well only with the uneducated and the unarmed.)

Bush needed high oil prices to encourage development of domestic supplies: it worked.

He then needed high soft commodity prices to narrow the balance of trade deficit caused by the high price of imported oil. Hence bio-fuel subsidies: they worked. They didn't work in the literal sense that they encouraged end-use of bio-fuels, but they worked in the Machiavellian sense - they transferred $ from Egyptians to mid-Westerners.

The icing on the cake should have been the "Arab Spring" triggered by 17%+ food price inflation. Obama (and Hillary) botched it.

The Ethanol/Biofuels scam shouldn't be unwound until the US is aggressively exploiting fracking and shale oil, and oil imports are greatly reduced.

In the mean-time, I'm happy to see $ flow from unfriendly foreigners to the pockets of farmers in the mid-West.